The start of September brings many changes from the summer months, and if you venture outside one you'll likely notice right away is an increase in yellowjackets. Late summer and early fall is a common time to spot them around and, unfortunately, get stung by them. 

"So wasps in a general sense cover a massive amount of species," said City parks and facilities manager Rod March. "What we're typically seeing here are called yellowjackets. Yellowjackets right now, what they're doing is feeding their colonies, which are those nests, and sometimes underground or in attics, in eaves, in trees. We've eliminated a few of those nests for sure."

What really brings out yellowjackets this time of year is the fruit from trees falling to the ground. Apple or crabapple trees, for instance, drop their fruit this time of year and that really attracts large clusters of the insects. 

"These are pretty ferocious insects right now that are coming after it to help feed the colonies," March said. "The good side about all these colonies is they rarely if ever reuse one of these nests. You don't have to worry about it, they die off, it's only the queen that survives, and she'll be deep underground."

Unfortunately, until they die off when the colder weather comes, yellowjackets can be quite a nuisance with a painful sting that they can, unlike bees, use as many times as they like. If they grow to be too much of a problem at your next backyard barbecue, there are some simple homemade traps that will help solve the problem.

"There are easy traps you can set up at home," March said, "out of pop bottles, that sort of thing, that help trap the wasps and keep them away from your barbecuing areas. But certainly, this is the time of year that we're seeing them."

The pop bottle trap March described is relatively simple to make. Take a two-liter pop bottle, cut the top off it, tip it upside down, and pour some fruit juice into the bottom half of the bottle before gluing the upside-down top of the bottle inside the other part, creating a funnel. Wasps can find their way into the trap, but aren't able to fly back out again. 

"You'll capture a hundred that are in your yard within an hour or so," said March. "They are just attracted to anything sweet like sugar water or anything like that. That's the easy way to eliminate them. You can also buy fake wasp nests."

March added the best way to keep wasps out of your yard to begin with is to clean up the fruit that falls from trees right away and not give wasps a chance to come find it.